Oh yes, I can contradict myself if I like. The fact is that you must be a trusting person in order to feel at ease with yourself and life. But there’s no need to be stupid.

It’s all about the stakes. How much does it matter if this person lets you down? Are you trusting them with a minor errand, or a major responsibility, or a big secret, or a sharp knife, or your life savings?

Everyone can be trusted to do some things. Your mum can be trusted to love you. Your boss can be trusted to tell you when you’ve messed up. A thief can be trusted to steal. When you come to put your trust in someone you need to weigh up how strong your confidence in them is, against how much it matters if they let you down.

So yes, trust everyone as a default setting, but know where the limit of that trust is. If you’re dealing with someone you’ve known and loved all your life, you might trust them with a fair chunk of your money because they always repay you on time. Or you might not trust them because they want it for their new business and they have a history of bad investments.

You might, however, hand that same money over to a complete stranger… who is a qualified investment manager recommended by a close and trusted friend. You see? Trust, yes. But not blind trust.

I have one friend I can’t ever trust to turn up on time for a social event. It’s irritating. Then again, in a crisis I could count on him to step between me and danger without a second thought. Do I trust him? Yes… but it depends what for. So I invite him to parties after weighing up the likelihood of him letting me down about his arrival time (at least 99 per cent), against how much it will matter (very little).

I might come up with a different answer if I was weighing up whether to trust a stranger with my house keys, or a friend with a secret I really didn’t want divulged, or my child to cross a busy road, or a colleague to fetch me a coffee. I’d consider what I knew of their track record, I’d think about how much a breach of trust would matter, I’d factor in a preference for trust over mistrust, and I’d see what answer came up.

Trust is a personal thing, and it has a lot to do with nuances and intuition about the person in question. Trust people to be who they are, not who you want them to be. I have friends I would trust with my life. But I wouldn’t necessarily let them look after my cat.